Good Morning America Covers UCF Cheating Scandal on National News
Culture, News, UCF Administration — By Staff on November 10, 2010 at 1:07 pmUPDATE: Students Blame Professor’s ‘Laziness’ For Sparking Controversy
Read the full story on this major update in the UCF cheating scandal here.
Prof. tells ABC: Cheating was ‘like a knife through the heart’
The cheating scandal rocking UCF’s College of Business has officially made national network news.
ABC’s Good Morning America sent a correspondent to Orlando to give a live report to anchors George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts, who did not hide their outrage over the cheating.
ABC Anchor George Stephanopoulos
“We’re going to turn to just a maddening story out of Florida,” Stephanopoulos said when setting up the story. “A college professor there says he’s disgusted and disillusioned after he discovered with some detective work that fully one-third of 600 students in his business course had cheated on the midterm — 200 students!”
That’s when Stephanopoulos tossed to ABC news correspondent Yunji de Nies, who appeared live via satellite outside Millican Hall, with the sound of UCF’s iconic Reflecting Pond able to be heard in the background. The biggest new piece of information revealed her report was that 75 percent of the suspected cheaters have come forward through email or by admitting the behavior in person.
Professor Richard Quinn broke his silence on the cheating scandal by giving ABC News his first interview. And if you thought he was exaggerating when he first told his class he was “physically ill, absolutely disgusted” and “completely disillusioned” by their behavior — the interview showed he wasn’t.
“This was just like a knife through the heart,” Quinn said, during an emotional interview with de Nies.
Some students sided with Quinn, and told ABC News there’s no need to send even more unethical people into the business world. But others said Quinn was making a mountain out of a molehill.
RAW VIDEO: QUINN SCOLDING STUDENTS FOR CHEATING
Rumors that a student stole a copy of the test were debunked by a report in the University of Wisconsin’s student newspaper stating a student purchased the exam answers online from the textbook publisher test bank. The Badger Herald quoted UCF Associate Dean of Academic Programs and Technology Taylor Ellis who also said, “There was no breach of security at the school.”
Students commenting on KnightNews.com have suggested it was just a practice test circulated students got on the publisher’s website, but KnightNews.com was unable to reach anyone at the publishing company to find out more details on what exactly was accessed.
UCF student Konstantin Ravvin told ABC News he thought UCF’s so-called cheating scandal had been blown out of proportion.
“This is college, everyone cheats. Everyone cheats in life in general,” Ravvin told ABC News. “I just think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this testing lab who hasn’t cheated on an exam. They’re making a witch hunt out of absolutely nothing, as if they want to teach us some sort of moral lesson.”
But de Nies said, “A lesson in morals is precisely what Professor Quinn is hoping his students take away.”
“If they’re going to learn one thing coming out of a university, if they learn nothing else, they’re going to learn dignity and honor and the value of ethics and honesty,” Quinn told ABC News.
When de Nies finished her report, the anchors made it clear they were bothered by Ravvin’s comments on the situation.
“Oh man, that new definition — everyone does it,” Stephanopoulos said, “I couldn’t believe that student!”
Neither could his co-anchor.
“Everyone cheats, everyone cheats in life?” Roberts said. “Maybe he’s meaning people cut corners here and there, but to say it so blatantly, I’m sure his parents…”
Stephanopoulos then interrupted Roberts to share more of his disappointment. “And to suggest it’s all OK!” he said.
Roberts finished up her thoughts on Ravvin’s by declaring, “That’s a real problem there.”
The segment on one of America’s top-rated morning news shows lasted more than three minutes, and aired across the entire country. The students have until midnight tonight to retake their exams.
KnightNews.com is continuing to follow this major, national story, and will post more updates when we can.
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67 Comments
Just to clear a few things up:
1) Using the test bank to create an exam is not cheating on the professor’s part, as the book publisher provides the test bank questions to the professor specifically for that purpose.
2) The questions in the practice tests are not the same (and are specifically excluded from) the test bank.
3) Test bank questions are not supposed to be available to students ever.
4) If you think that using test bank questions to create an exam is an example of laziness, you have obviously never tried to create an exam. It takes a lot more work than you think, even using test bank questions.
Maybe if any of you actually KNEW Konstantin, you’d understand he’s much more than a sentence. Had they not generalized this mans words and clipped it out of context, it’d be more clear to you. Let’s all take a lesson and understand the media needs ratings, not always the full story.
I’ve had MANY professors suggest the students use the practice test on the book publisher’s website… So are they promoting “cheating?”
The student that got interviewed is a kook, though. Only idiots cheat in college. Having the a degree is only half the battle. To be successful, you actually have to know things. That won’t happen if a person cheats constantly.
lazy, misleading professor+lazy, sneaky, not bright enough to get into a good school, blame shifting students+ 5th grade level “news website”=par for the course at a commuter community college on steroids masquerading as a state university called- you guessed it, UCF
I agree with the previous poster. This happens often at the college I attend. The professor of a survey course uses old questions on a new exam. The old exams are always in circulation because people know that to do well you need to do a few practice tests before the real thing. Some students get lucky and recognize questions they’ve done before. Ya know how you always say “good luck” before a friend takes a test…
It is absolutely not cheating if a student has access to these old exams and practices by doing questions that later appear on the real test. Doing practice questions is truly the best way to study for these types of exams. Does the student know which questions will be asked? No. So how can he/she be held accountable for “cheating”.
It’s as if I approached you and said “pop quiz: what color is the sky?”. Then when you respond “Blue,” I say, “Your cheating because you’ve seen that exact question and answer before!”
It is the job of the professor to realize that old tests are in circulation and that he/she needs to write new questions each and every time an exam is given. Any professor who doesn’t realize this is completely out of touch…
What were the results of the second test.
What was obtained were sample test questions from the publisher. People studied these sample test questions and they covered the material that was taught in the class. The incompetent, lazy professor lied to the students by saying he personally wrote the questions on the mid-term. Because soon as the test was distributed it was quickly noticed by the people who studied the sample questions that this test was copied word for word off out of the sample questions. The sample questions were available from the publisher and from the campus book store if you requested them ordered. They are offered as additional study material.
Instead of the professor coming out and saying that he was lazy and incompetent he decided to go the unethical route and say that the students who were diligent and studied were cheating. This professor needs the ethics course much more than the students but because nobody can be hurt by an ethics course they should all take the ethics course. The professor will learn about lies to students (taking someone elses work and passing it off as your own) and the students will learn that when you find out that your professor is using a test bank you should report him to his boss.
External force in the curve is that some had better materials to study from. Did they all get every single answer correct? No, they just had better materials to study from and that is the external force. Do your job, create the tests you claimed you did and you wont have this problem. Now lets see who we can pass the blame on to next.
UCF: University of Clown Fundamentals
Articles are powerful as far as they’re capable to target the prospect’s demands. Eventhough there’s not a lot to say on a particular issue maintain it brief and also concise and always refrain from happy talk.
What were the results of the “new” mid-term exam that the professor actually did write?
It seems that everyone one the professor’s side are mostly elaborating on how the student accessed the test bank questions in an attempt to get people to look away from the real problem, and the professor’s mistake.
It isn’t cheating if you are using something to study that is not going to be straight out from the test, or to your best believe, is not going to on the test. The argument of how the student gained unauthorized access to the test shouldn’t even be tied to the whole cheating scandal, since the professor already said he is GOING TO WRITE HIS OWN TEST. Should the test bank access be unauthorized, the student who accessed it should be punished in some other way and NOT cheating. It’s definitely unreasonable to punish the whole class on the so called “cheating” that they didn’t commit.
If the student were found to had accessed the test bank illegally, the perfect analogy would be a student stealing a Princeton Review GMAT study guide from a bookstore and studied the GMAT from it. The student is NOT CHEATING, but he had committed a crime.
This was not cheating. The professor stated at the start of the school year that he wrote the tests himself. Buying or downloading a test bank would therefore not provide you with the answers to the test if you believed the professor. Getting the test bank will definitely help you study for the test but according to the professor, it is not the test.
The professor should apologize to the students and he himself should take the four hour ethics class.
I am ashamed and physically ill that this professor is teaching any subject matter.
As a UCF school of business alum, I’m on team students. The professor claimed he wrote his own questions. Even if you had full knowledge that you had the publisher’s test bank, you are more likely to view this as part of a study guide rather than a cheat sheet. Fraternities having been doing way worse with their own test banks for decades. Just write a new, relevant exam every year, and the problem is solved.
The professor slipped in little white lie by saying he wrote the questions, and the students called his bluff. It’s 2010, shouldn’t we expect our business students to be able to conduct a simple google search and network with their groups while gathering any sort of information?
I think this highlights the need for innovation in online standardized education as a whole. On a black and white ethical note, I’ve know people who have taken entire courses online for other individual’s credit. It’s a shame UCF is taking the fall on this one, because we are years ahead of most other state colleges in progressing this evolving medium of education, but obviously there is a long way to go.
I very happy to find this web site on bing, just what I was searching for : D besides saved to favorites .
Not everybody cheats, maybe this Konstantin fellow does/did, but not everyone. I’m sure they would be “hardpressed” to find someone in that lab, with the exception of him, who has cheated.
Regardless do these kids not realize this could mean expulsion from the University? Are they are stupid? Good way to completely kiss your college career goodbye!
Out of all the student in the Coll of Bus. ABC News quotes him! Look I have that kid in several of my classes and will say the overall concensuss is that Konstantin is an IDIOT. In class he always talks out of his anus without ever having any solid facts to back up his arguments. It is IMPOSSIBLE to cheat @ the UCF testing center. These students were not cheating on this exam, practice questions are a common way for students to study, when a professor says he writes his own test questions, there is no way a student would have known they were studying a copy of the actual exam.
What the students got WAS NOT practice tests….. They were the actual test questions that are provided to the professors WITH THE TEXT. It is called a TEST BANK and allows a professor to ask questions that are in line with the text. This “bank” of questions are to only be provided to the professors/school that is using the textbook. Students are not to have access to this.
Yes, students have access to the practice tests. Yes, they can use them to study- BUT these are not included in the test bank that the professor uses to create the exams. The advantage of using a test bank for building a test is not to save time, but to ensure that the students are being tested with standardized and organized test questions. It can take just as long to organize a test using these questions as it does to write your own exam. NOT laziness!
How is this cheating. Students went on a website and got a practice from the text book website. This is in no way cheating. We have SI which gives out old test from previous years. Is doing the homework in the back of the book cheating if a LAZY professor decides to copy the questions for his test. The fact is this guy decided to copy the same PRACTICE test for his actual test. This guy gets paid 6 figures to teach plus he has TAs so why is it that he cant make his own test. This is called being resource full not cheating. I personally think the professor owes the students and the university an apology.